by J. P. Sumner
Which was all the incentive I needed.
I stood up straight and quickly launched a head-butt that smashed into her face. The best thing about a head-butt is that no-one ever expects them. More often than not, you hurt yourself more than the person you’re actually hitting, so it’s just assumed that nobody would ever bother to try one. But if you do it right, they can be lethal.
I’d brought my head back slightly, then lurched my shoulders and neck forward, relaxing so my skull became a dead weight. Natalia was smaller than me, so I had to aim it just right. My forehead came arching down and connected with her right between the eyes on the bridge of the nose.
I heard the bone shatter, and instantly felt the warm blood spray onto my face. I could sense her body stiffen up as consciousness left her, and she fell straight backward onto the floor. As she landed, I heard her head crack against the floor. She was out for the count.
Straight away, I went over to her and knelt down, turning my body slightly so I could reach her knife with my hands behind me. I maneuvered it in my grip until it was at the right angle, then cut the ties off me.
I brought my hands up and rubbed each wrist in turn, trying to get the blood flowing again. Then I went over to her, picked up the gun and pocketed the knife. I looked down at Natalia Salikov, unconscious on the floor of the furnace room. It would be so simple to just put a bullet in her head and move on. But after what these bastards have put me through, she can suffer.
I took aim and shot her in her right kneecap. Her leg almost blew apart and her body jolted violently as she flashed in and out of consciousness. Blood pooled around her as she lay there, motionless once again.
‘See you in hell, bitch,’ I said.
I left the room, locking the door behind me. When this place goes up in flames, it’s taking her with it.
SIXTY-TWO
With Natalia out of the picture, I had her brother, Gene, Ketranovich and Clara to take care of. I wasn’t too worried about any other personnel, given that they seem to kill them themselves once they’ve served their purpose. If there is anyone else left, I’d simply advise them to leave while they still can.
Armed with Natalia’s gun and knife, I made my way down the long corridor, away from the furnace rooms and back toward the main control room. My priority was contacting Josh and warning him about the trap waiting for all the GlobaTech and U.S. troops.
As I approached, I dropped to one knee and tried to sneak a peek through the window of the left hand door. The room looked empty. The large screen that had previously displayed the radar battle between missile and plane was turned off. The main computer hub was unmanned.
I nudged the door gently and waited to see if it provoked a response. After a minute, I’d got nothing. Happy that the coast was clear, I stood and walked through into the control room. The entrance to the furnace hub was the door on the west wall, as you looked at it from the main entrance where I first came into the room before the airstrike. God knows where those three were, or what they were doing. I’d deal with that in a minute. I ran over to the control panel and looked for a means of communication.
There were consoles and screens everywhere, but nothing that resembled a phone. I looked around the room in desperation, but saw nothing. I checked my phone again, but there was no signal. I glanced around one last time. In the corner of the north wall, I noticed that there was something flashing on one of the screens. Clutching at straws, I went over and looked at the computer terminal. It appeared to be some kind of communications system. It said satellites were offline and a signal emanating from the compound was active.
That must be why there’s no cell phone signal in the area – they’re manually jamming it.
I looked around the room at all the doors to make sure I was still alone, then sat down at the console. I wasn’t a complete beginner with computers, but I wasn’t Josh either. I clicked through the various menus and after a couple of minutes of what felt like, and probably looked like, random button pressing, I was able to deactivate the jamming signal. I quickly checked my phone and saw that it had re-established contact with the cell phone network, and coverage had reappeared on the screen.
Jackpot!
I quickly rang Josh.
‘Adrian!’ he yelled as he answered. ‘Where’ve you been? It’s all gone to shit up here!’
‘I don’t have time to explain right now,’ I replied. ‘Just listen to me. We’ve been played from day one – this whole thing is a set-up for GlobaTech and we’re playing right into their hands.’
‘Yeah, we figured something was up when the airstrike failed. What the hell happened?’
‘They had MIM-23 SAM sites that were armed with Hawk missiles.’
‘Jesus! Where did they get that kind of hardware?’
‘I’m guessing with the funds they got from GlobaTech before they did the internal re-shuffle and cut off their allowance.’
‘But how did they know about it in the first place?’
I paused, taking a deep breath, knowing that repeating it out loud for the first time would hurt.
‘It was Clara,’ I said. ‘She was with Dark Rain the whole time.’
It was Josh’s turn to be silent. I made a note of the time and date, as it didn’t happen often.
‘Well,’ he began. ‘What a fucking bitch!’
‘Yup. But listen, you have to get GlobaTech to call off the ground assault. If they come in here, they’re all going to die.’
‘No can do, Boss. It’s already underway. In addition to Clark’s little army, Secretary Schultz has brought in troop support from the American military now too. Because the assault on the F-22s took place on U.S. soil, it’s being hailed as a terrorist act. Gives them just cause to intervene and make this more than just a private matter.’
‘Shit. How many soldiers?’
‘You’ve got fifty or so GlobaTech personnel, plus another two or three hundred U.S. military troops.’
‘Holy mother of God...’
‘What?’
‘Josh, they don’t have any nukes here. They don’t have missiles of any kind. They don’t even have any soldiers. Everything you know about Dark Rain is a lie. It’s just Ketranovich, Clara and the Salikov twins. Everyone else, they kill after they’ve served their purpose.’
‘So, what exactly do they have? Just themselves?’
‘What they have are five rooms, each of which contains a furnace the size of a house, which was apparently used for disposing of chemical weapons fifty years ago. Each room also has about three hundred pounds of C4 attached to the ceiling. The section of the compound is directly under the main yard. You can probably see where this is going.’
‘Christ almighty!’
‘I know.’
‘Blowing the entire compound like that would leave a crater a mile wide and definitely kill everyone who was in the area – no question. But when it was just GlobaTech troops, it was just a minor conflict that could be explained away by the media spin doctors. But if the U.S. army is sending men in and they die, then we have a much a bigger problem that could lead to a war.’
‘Hence the urgency of me contacting you. You need to do something. Anything. Just stop them coming in here, Josh.’
‘I’ll get on the line to Clark right away.’
As he said that, the main entrance door opened and Gene Salikov walked in.
SIXTY-THREE
Our eyes met and he stopped in his tracks, clearly confused. I could see him working it all out in his head. I was meant to be dead by now, or at the very least still locked up in the furnace. His sister, Natalia, was sent to do the job. He’s staring at me, free as a bird, talking on the phone. Logic would dictate his sister is injured or worse, and that it’s my fault.
After a few seconds, he screamed something incomprehensible at me in Russian and reached for his gun.
‘Josh, I gotta go,’ I said, as the first bullet whizzed past my head.
I ducked behind the desk, throwing my pho
ne down and pulling Natalia’s gun out, instinctively checking the magazine. It was full, which was helpful. I reached up and blind-fired one round in the direction of the main door, just to try and get an idea of where he was.
There was a moment’s silence after I’d pulled the trigger before he stood, screaming, and squeezing off round after round at me. He began walking toward me, firing and yelling. I stuck my head around the corner of the desk and caught a glimpse of him. His eyes were wide with rage. He wasn’t thinking, he was just focused on putting a bullet in me. Which I can understand, given I’ve just head-butted his sister and then shot her in the leg.
However, he had me pinned down, and I couldn’t stay without increasing the risk of being shot myself. I fired another round blindly to make him hesitate a second or two, so I could have a look around at my options. None were leaping out at me.
But then I caught a break. I heard his click on an empty chamber. I don’t know how many spare magazines he had, but I had no wish to find out. Straight away, I was up and walking toward him, my gun aimed squarely at his chest.
‘Put your gun down,’ I said. ‘It’s over.’
He stopped where he was, which was on the other side of the center console, about thirty feet from me. He tossed his gun onto the floor when he realized I had him dead to rights. He was seething with rage, with an unblinking gaze of hatred on his face.
He stood casually, seemingly oblivious to the fact I had a gun aimed at him.
‘Why don’t you throw your weapon down too?’ he asked me. ‘Fight me like a real soldier.’
He cracked his knuckles and smiled, before switching into a fighting stance, similar to a boxer. Left foot forward, up on the balls of his feet. Hands high, guarding his face.
Despite my occupation, the concept of honor and tradition wasn’t lost on me. I do get that sometimes you just have to prove who’s best. Anyone can pull a trigger, but it takes a true warrior to fight it out with someone, unarmed, to the death.
I thought about it for a moment. I looked him up and down. He had a good, solid stance. He was light on his feet for a guy as muscular as he was. He seemed to put more weight on his front leg, which made me think he had an old injury on his back leg of some kind, which could prove useful. He was right-handed, and held his back hand slightly lower than his front, which means he’ll favor a strong right knock-out blow. Easy to avoid, but deadly if it lands. I looked in his eyes. That rage was still burning bright. Ultimately, I all but killed his sister about ten minutes ago, and he knew it. Someone in a fight to the death with hate as their fuel and revenge as their motive would be capable of immense things.
Then I assessed my personal situation. I had cracked ribs, a severely bruised back and had suffered two fairly significant concussions. I’d also been on the business end of a car bomb less than twenty-four hours ago, so it was safe to say I wasn’t firing on all cylinders physically.
I thought about it a moment longer.
‘Nah,’ I said, then pulled the trigger twice.
The first was aimed at his chest, but because he was stood slightly side on in his boxing stance, it grazed across him and hit his shoulder, doing nothing but making him stagger backward a little.
The second bullet hit him in the face. His face disappeared in a cloud of pink mist - blood, bone and brain merging together in a split second, then exploding all over the ground.
His body dropped with a dull thud. I tucked my gun behind my back and went over to get my phone. I rang Josh again.
‘Sorry about that,’ I said as he answered.
‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘You making friends again?’
‘Gene Salikov just started shooting at me because he figured out I’d killed his sister.’
‘You’ve taken out Natalia? How?’
‘I knocked her out, shot her in the leg and locked in one of the furnace rooms. I’d like to think that’s game over.’
‘I’m assuming Gene’s beef with you has been resolved amicably?’
‘Gene no longer has a face.’
‘Yeah, that’d do it.’
I made my way out of the control room and down the main corridor toward the stairs that would lead me up to the courtyard outside.
‘You had any luck with Clark or Schultz?’ I asked.
‘I got a hold of Clark, but he wasn’t convinced. He said their intel can’t be that wrong.’
‘It is, trust me. If they send the cavalry in here, everyone will die, Josh. Tell him to swallow his pride, reprimand his intelligence division and pull all the ground forces way back.’
I climbed the final flight of stairs and pushed open the metal door and went outside into the yard. The glare of the sun stung my eyes after being underground for so long. I squinted until they adjusted to the sunlight. I looked around, but there was no sign of Ketranovich or Clara.
‘How long ‘til they get here?’ I asked.
‘Just under twenty minutes,’ replied Josh.
‘Shit. I’ve lost The Mad Colonel and his bitch of a daughter. I’m assuming he has the detonator.’
‘Hold up. Daughter?’
‘Oh, yeah – forgot to mention that, didn’t I? Clara is Ketranovich’s daughter.’
‘Jesus Christ. I officially hate her.’
‘Join the club.’
I heard the mechanical groan of the hangar doors opening again to my right.
‘I’ve found them. Do what you can to buy me some time,’ I said before I hung up.
I ran over to where my Berettas were still on the ground, near the SAM sites. I got there just in time to see Clara emerge from the darkness of the hangar on a motorcycle, with Ketranovich walking out behind her. They both stopped to look at me, then they looked at each other.
‘Go!’ yelled Ketranovich.
I aimed one of my guns and fired at the front tire of the motorcycle, causing Clara to stop.
‘Don’t even think about it, either of you,’ I said, aiming a Beretta at each of them.
‘You’ve lost, Adrian Hell,’ said Ketranovich. ‘You can’t stop this.’
‘I’m pretty sure you’ve said that already. And now you’re two Salikovs down and I’m still stood here, so I’d say I’m doing a pretty good job so far.’
Clara revved her engine.
‘Clara, I swear to God, I would give vital parts of my anatomy if it meant I could shoot you dead right now, so be a good girl and get off the fucking bike!’
Ketranovich raised his right hand into the air. He was holding something in it.
‘I don’t think so, Adrian Hell,’ he said. He turned to Clara. ‘Get out of here. I will see this through to the end.’
She nodded and revved her engine again.
I was looking at his hand.
‘That’s right,’ he said, seeing my hesitation. ‘This is the detonator.’
I lowered my guns.
‘Ah, shit.’
SIXTY-FOUR
The detonator looked like a gun, but without the barrel. It was a small, silver handle with a grip and a trigger. It fit nicely in the palm of his hand. His finger was inside the trigger guard, pressing lightly on the trigger itself.
One quick flinch of his finger and we’d all the dead.
I looked back and forth between Ketranovich and Clara. I didn’t want to get blown into orbit, but there was no way I was letting Clara escape either. Not after everything she’s done.
My hands tightened around the Berettas. This had to end here. Now. If GlobaTech and the U.S. Army came marching in through the front door, Ketranovich would happily kamikaze himself to take them all out. Such an attack on domestic soil against U.S. troops would require a proportionate response by the government. Their logical target would be Russia, given that’s where Ketranovich is from.
And we all know how a conflict between America and Russia would turn out.
So here I stood. The sun beating down on me relentlessly. The light breeze blowing sand and dust around us, occasionally stinging my eyes. M
y mind was working overtime to find an outcome that didn’t involve a third World War. If Clara got out of here on that bike, I’d never see her again. If Ketranovich moves his finger two millimeters, bits of me are going to land in Montana.
As a wise man once said: fuck it.
I raised both Berettas - one aimed at Clara’s head, the other at Ketranovich’s right hand. For some reason, Ennio Morricone’s theme from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly played through my mind.
It all came down to this moment.
‘Drop the detonator,’ I said. ‘Or I’ll kill your daughter.’
‘Drop your guns,’ replied Ketranovich. ‘Or I’ll kill us all, right here, right now.’
Well, that worked.
I checked my aim on both guns. I took a deep breath, keeping my poker face on as much as I could. This was either the smartest, or the dumbest, thing I’ve ever done. If I get it right, you could argue I’ve saved the world from war, which would be pretty cool… However, if I get it wrong, I’ll be dead, so people can think whatever the hell they want to – I won’t be around to care.
One last deep breath. My heart rate was nice and steady. The adrenaline was at bay - for now.
I squeezed the trigger in my left hand. The bullet covered the distance between me and Ketranovich in under a second and hit his forearm roughly two inches below his wrist. His forearm exploded in a cloud of blood, nearly severing his hand. The detonator flew out of his grip and landed off to his right.
A second after the first bullet was fired, I squeezed the trigger in my right hand. I aimed a couple of feet in front of the motorcycle, anticipating Clara’s sharp exit. The bullet struck the motorcycle just above the front wheel, pushing it out to the left. This caused Clara to lose control and topple of the handlebars and off to the right, her back and neck crunching onto the desert sand. She rolled a few feet then lay still, making a low groaning noise that was muffled from her being face down in the dust.
I breathed a very audible sigh of relief before I rushed over to Ketranovich – who was on all fours, screaming – and kicked him hard and flush in the ribcage. He rolled over onto his back, clutching at his right forearm, which was leaking blood at a steadily increasing rate.
